And your bird can sing
by lizmaverick
Summary: What happens to the crew of the bebop after session 26


I don't own Cowboy bebop or the lyrics to any beatles songs.

_You tell me that you've got everything you want_

_And your bird can sing_

_But you don't get me, you don't get me_

_You say you've seen seven wonders and your bird is green_

_But you can't see me, you can't see me_

_When your prized possessions start to wear you down_

_Look in my direction, I'll be round, I'll be round_

_When your bird is broken will it bring you down_

_you may be awoken, I'll be round, I'll be round_

_You tell me that you've heard every sound there is_

_And your bird can swim_

_But you can't hear me, you can't hear me_

"I should have been a better friend. I shoulda stopped you. I shoulda grabbed you by the neck; I shoulda kicked your teeth in. I'm sorry Spike." With that Jet Black left the grave sight on Mars leaving his best friend and partner in the cold, wet ground of the red planet. Jet never really believed that he would fall in that fight, but there was no use in regrets now. Now I have to get along with my life. "The only way to stay out of trouble is to grow old, so I guess I'll concentrate on that."

"You like money. You've got a great big dollar sign there where most women have a heart." "Come on Jet, we're comrades, there's no reason to get cruel about it. I'm just saying that there is a great big bounty head out there and if you won't go after it with me I'll just have to go after him by myself, I don't need this. I don't need this ship, I got along fine without you and I can do fine now by myself again." She turned to walk out the living room stairs and stopped before the hatch door, "Just because he's not here anymore doesn't mean the worlds come to a standstill. Everyone on this ship including you had a life before we came together here. We can start over." Jet looked at her for a moment realizing the pleading that was in her eyes and the sudden shift in her voice. In approximately five seconds her demeanor had changed from cold-hearted bitch to that of a scared and innocent young lady. If her eyes started to well up with tears I would have to give her an academy award. "Because you can never go back and start again. Because the older you grow, the worse it turns out. You don't see it happen to you - it just happens. You wake up one morning and anything goes and that's alright too." Faye huffed in the walkway. Her posture quickly returned to that of a shrew. "Fine Jet, there is nothing for me here anymore I've taken everything I can from my time here and it is time for me to move on. When I get settled I'll give you a call, maybe we can get a bite to eat or something." Faye made the entire statement while looking at her nails, not being able to make eye contact with the man that she viewed as a pseudo father figure. Damn it, it wasn't natural for a woman to act like that, like nothing had happened. He had saved her life on more that one occasion and that means something why did she have to be so cold why couldn't she act like a girl and cry a little. I would have been there for her. I wouldn't have teased her or made fun of her, I would have let her cry on my shoulder and I would have cooked for her. I would have…

Money. You know what that is. The stuff you never have enough of. Little green things with dead guy's picture that men slave for, commit crimes for, die for. It's the stuff that has caused more trouble in the world than anything else ever invented. Simply because there's too little of it and I want it. The bar was a hole in the wall gin joint with soft music and smoke permeating in the air. "Hola, Chiquita." Faye turned to the man at her left and returned his greeting with a coy smile. The dark Mediterranean looking man offered Faye a seat and she accepted. "What are you doing in a place like this?" The man asked while motioning for the bartender to bring more drinks. "Tequila alright?" The man asked quickly. "Tequila's fine," she replied from underneath her eyelashes. "So what are you doing in Tijuana?" "I came to TJ for the waters." "But we're in the middle of the desert." "I was misinformed." Faye took a sip of her drink. "I'm looking for someone" "Well Chiquita I'm right here." Faye stifled a laugh and reached her hand out to his -- only to reveal a band on his left ring finger. "Last time I looked, you had a wife."  
"Maybe next time you look, I won't." The man responded. "That's what they all say." Faye said with mirth in her voice, she was beginning to enjoy the gumption this guy had. He asked her out, not even trying to hide the fact that he was married. If she wasn't working she might have taken him up on his offer. "Seriously, I'm looking for Seth Gecko." The man immediately became serious and sat up in his seat. He took a shot of tequila and looked directly into her eyes, "I'm Seth." Faye looked at him questionably "What kind of name is Seth Gecko?" The man loosened his posture and smiled, "my mother was Irish my dad was Greek, years back it was Geckolopolous, but my family shortened it because it was too long, we could never right out the whole name on an envelope." Faye just laughed. "You should stop calling girls you don't know Chiquita, you don't say that to girls you don't even know." Faye warned "Where I learned Spanish, you do." Seth replied. They were playing a dangerous game and both of them new it; the only question was who was going to make the first move. Seth has a bounty on his head for drug smuggling and intent to commit murder. He wasn't someone you fooled around with. This was serious and if she wanted to succeed by herself she would need to get this job done right. "Let me explain the house rules. Follow the rules; we'll get along like a house on fire. Rule number one: No sudden moves, no questions. You make a sudden move." Faye held up her gun. "Mr. .44 makes a sudden move. You ask a question, Mr. 44 answers it. Are we clear Mr. Gecko?" "Crystal" the man deadpanned.

Venus suited me better. I really got to know it in the classic period of the black market. Drugs, stockings, people, and guns exchange hands. They could get anything if people wanted it enough and had the money to pay. I'd run anything, if people wanted it enough and had the money to pay. Of course, a situation like that does tempt amateurs, but you know they can't stay the course like a professional. A view of a dead body floating in an icy river will startle most people, but not a professional. I had really made a name for myself on Venus. Faye Valentine, bounty hunter extraordinaire; but I wasn't just bounty hunting anymore I was trafficking everything from drugs to silk stockings. I was constantly smuggling in merchandise from Mars. After the break down of the syndicate system everything was up for grabs. The intricate system of crime families running the universe had been temporally halted do to one man, Spike's confrontation with vicious put a hiccup in the system and now most of the rival families were fighting hard for their newly acquired territory. The Red Dragons remained in control of Mars and most of the Jovian moons, but they had lost Venus. The loss of Venus to the Turks was a massive embarrassment to the establishment and instead of declaring a full fledged war with the oasis of the solar system the dragons had blockaded the entire planet, but the people of Venus were accustomed to a certain lifestyle and without the finer things in life from Mars the people were getting angry and in their anger they were willing to pay any amount for what they wanted. Similarly the raw ingredients for red eye were grown on Venus and in order to manufacture the highly coveted drug the materials needed to be shipped to Mars in order to be refined. The import-export industry had suddenly become extremely profitable and Faye Valentine was at the for-front of the new blockade running movement.

"My my my. So many guns around town and so few brains. You know, you're the second guy today who seems to think a gatt in the hand means the world by the tail." Faye stated to the well dressed man holding the gun toward her on the Martian loading dock. The air was heavy and the clouds were low and dark, there would defiantly be rain by this afternoon. The early hours of the morning provided no sunlight for the business going on at the docks the only illumination was coming from a set of flickering street lamps, there halogen light bulbs were softly humming in the distance. Faye walked toward the armed guards with her hands up. She slowly and seductively brought her hands down playing with the material of her short black skirt. "Miss, please keep your hands where we can see them and stay there." The goon called out to Faye. "Of course, I'll stay right here, umm could you help me with something though, I'm terribly embarrassed but my skirt has a loose string and I just need to fix it, but since I can't put my hands down do you think you could come over and fix it for me?" Faye asked completely taking on the persona of a young Lolita in need of help. She tipped her head to one side and looked at the syndicate man from beneath her eyelashes. With her hand toward the sky, her wife beater came up slightly over the line of her skirt and was exposing the taught skin of her stomach. "I, I'm sorry miss but our orders are to bring you in immediately," the man breathlessly replied. "I completely understand do you mind if I get my jacket, it feels like rain." "I'll get it," the second man interjected. It was obvious that his partner was about two seconds away from giving this woman the keys to their zip craft. Faye coyly smiled at the men as the second one grabbed her jacket from her ship. As he handed her the red coat Faye kicked him in the stomach –hard. The man immediately keeled over grabbing his stomach as he was going down Faye kicked him again in the face and grabbed his gun while he was stunned. As all of this was going on the other goon charged toward and tackled her to the ground the initial impact of hitting the ground full force with a fool grown man on top of her was enough to make her want to run away, but she new that she was fighting for survival and she would need to get out of this situation alive above all else. They both reached for the gun, but the larger man beat her to it and pistol whipped her in the back of the head knocking Faye Valentine out.

When Faye came to she had the worst headache in history. Everything she did made her head pound. She was in a soft bed in a large spartan room but what the room lacked in clutter it more than made up for in the view. She got up slowly to look out over Mars, the room was above the haze of the city and you were able to see the mountains in the distance, she never thought Mars could be so beautiful she slowly put her hand out to touch the cool glass of the window. "ehmm." Someone cleared there throat behind Faye. "You'll smudge the glass." She turned around slowly and cynically smiled. "I'm sure you can afford to have someone clean up the mess for you. If you could show me the door? I have work to do." Faye replied. "Sorry my dear, you'll be here for a while can I get you a drink?" He asked. "Brandy." "How do you want it?" "In a glass," she deadpanned. Faye sat back down on the bed holding her head trying to think of a way out of the mess she had gotten herself into. She new he was being tailed the same syndicate goons had been following her for months she had been careless and let her guard down, now she was in the worst possible position she could imagine. Faye Valentine was trapped and injured inside the leader of the top syndicate's room. "You shouldn't drink that all in one gulp. It's really fine brandy you should at least take a sip of it and enjoy it." The man stated disgustedly. "Get me another fucking glass and I'll sip all I want." Faye was trying to change her tactics maybe if she acted like the shrew he would get frustrated and let her leave. The bottle of aged brandy quickly came flying through the air towards her. She easily grabbed it out of the air and poured herself another glass and sipped the alcohol slowly. "You have a great view of the city." Faye stated to no one in particular. The man just made a non committed noise neither acknowledging the beauty of the view nor saying anything against it he just ignored what she had to say. For some reason this is what set Faye off all the anger she had felt finally began to rise to the surface. "What do you know about scenery? Or beauty? Or any of the things that really make life worth living? You're just a beast -- coarse, and barbaric." "You keep right on talking. I like the way you run me down like that." Sensing that there was some truth in his comment Faye stopped herself and seductively walked over to him she slowly sat on his lap and put her arms around him. Faye whispered, "No names, no addresses. Just companions for the evening." She looked into his mismatched eyes for some acknowledgement, for some sign of what it was that she had to do to get out of here. "Romani, get off my lap you're embarrassing me." She abruptly left his lap in order to straiten out her skirt. Spike began to laugh. "Christ, did you think I was some moron that you could just seduce and get rid of while I was distracted." Faye began to cry, "you don't understand I, I thought you were going to kill me…sometimes you have to do things you don't like in order to survive." "You deserve an award, seriously why aren't you an actress this performance is liable to bring a tear to my eye." Faye quickly stopped crying when she realized it wasn't working. "In the complete thirty minutes since you've woken up your personality has shifted like ten times." There was one line Faye hadn't hit upon yet she could confront him about what happened. This was the first time she had seen him since he supposedly died. She had a right to know what the hell happened, she wasn't going walk on egg shells because it was spike or because he was the leader of the red dragon syndicate.

"Was Julia the girl?" "What girl?" "The one who left you with such a high opinion of women." Faye turned to him as he grabbed a cigarette she grabbed the lighter off the night stand and lit it for him, he gave the one she lit to her and grabbed another one and his lighter for himself. "You know Spike; you're not very hard to figure, only at times. Sometimes I know exactly what you're going to say. Most of the time. The other times... the other times, you're just a gaucho." He just huffed at her statement. Faye could feel herself getting the upper hand in the argument. She slapped him. Spike refused to give her the satisfaction of even acknowledging the slap and when she realized that he endured the slap and turned towards her again without flinching she reached her hand back again to slap him only this time Spike grabbed her hand before it came close to his face. "What are you so upset about? Who are you anyway? Who are you? A criminal? Are you proud of yourself? Proud of smuggling, running the blockade or cheating at cards? Things you could just as well keep out of. You wouldn't need to do all that if you'd work. If you weren't a lazy bitch," Spike shouted out. "I could say the same to you…now let me out of here. Now!" Faye crossed her arms over her chest and turned away from him, uncomfortable with their proximity. He grabbed her and forced her to look at him. "Now Romani, I'm only gonna say this once so listen carefully." "Oww, Spike you're hurting me." He held his grip on her upper arms and shook her to emphasize his seriousness. "Faye about three months ago my men started dying, you're into more than just smuggling and trafficking." Faye turned her head down refusing to look him in the eye. Spike shook her again. "Look at me when I'm talking to you, Faye you're going to start talking to me about this or." "Or what Spike? You're going to hit me? You're going to have one of your goons kill me? Tell me spike I really would love to know. Because if that's your plan then I just ask that you make it quick. I think you owe me that much." He finally loosened his grip on her arms and she pulled away from him. Her arms were already red and would soon bruise. He stared at her for what seemed like an eternity. "Just tell me what happened." Faye rolled her eyes. "You first."


End file.
